That’s a really great question. I will leave it to other people in the comments to answer.
I took OP’s question to mean, “Give me some top-down game suggestions”.
Now that I read it again, I see your point. But also, I can’t think of any of the suggestions in this thread as being unique.
pishadoot@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
The game defined the factory builder genre. Everything that followed (Dyson sphere project, satisfactory, shapez, etc etc etc) came after factorio (nicknamed cracktorio because of its addictive qualities) was released.
Gameplay wise it’s a top down with some vehicles and weapons, which is not unique at all, but the core of the gameplay loop was unique and spawned an entire sub genre of build games.
For the akshuallys in the room, it is possible that there were factory line builders before factorio that I’m not aware of, but none had the depth and breadth and definitely none were as popular/iconic.